


this is the way

by youaremyscience



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youaremyscience/pseuds/youaremyscience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are so many ways to love someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John

This is the way John loves Sherlock.

His best friend is brilliant, acerbic, charismatic, eloquent, cold, arrogant, ruthless, maddening as hell. He is a man who frequently doesn’t take care of himself – a man who needs a steadfast companion, someone trustworthy upon whom he can rely. A man who throws himself in front of buses and taunts psychopaths. He is a man for whom John will do nearly anything, and has. He has lied, and cheated, and jumped over rooftops and crawled in gutters. He has nearly died. He has killed. For these things, he does not have any regrets.

He has made tea, and picked up the shopping, and done the washing-up, and entertained less interesting people to free Sherlock from their attentions. He has been on the receiving end of hurled insults (and glassware). He has been kept up nights by a wailing violin, and been woken too early by a case. He has been prevented from going to work, he has been interrupted during kisses, he has cancelled dates to be home with Sherlock when he was ill. Were he afforded the opportunity, he would not change these things.

He has been scared. Bloody terrified. He has been the subject of harrowing experimentation. He has been kidnapped by a madman. He has had guns to his head, a knife to his throat, he has gone hand-to-hand with giants and gangsters. He has gone out in public dressed as a ninja, which is still somehow the least of the indignities he has suffered in the name of Sherlock’s investigations. He has been lied to and manipulated. But he remembers the gray of his life before this, and is grateful even when he is furious.

After a difficult case, he puts a hand on Sherlock’s back and rubs, because it makes Sherlock relax just a bit. On danger nights, he stays awake just in case Sherlock doesn’t want to be alone. He listens and watches and steps in to tell him when something is not good. He sometimes does not want to, wishes his friend was a bit lower maintenance, wishes he could separate his own life out again, wishes that Sherlock would act more human, would show some compassion, would apply some of that genius to remembering manners, would exert some self-control and just  _shut his mouth sometimes_. But in the end, he is there, and he does what Sherlock needs. Because he is the only friend Sherlock will admit to having, and this fills him with equal parts pride and concern.

He does what Sherlock needs.

So he listens to Sherlock’s voice, choked with tears, telling him to forget his faith, but John knows, with everything he is, that Sherlock is real.

So he stands and watches him fall.

This is the way John loves Sherlock. 


	2. Sherlock

Most people do not like Sherlock. They find him unsettling. He discovered this early on and cultivated it, because it keeps people away, and no one gets hurt. Despite what some people believe, he doesn’t  _enjoy_  hurting people. He simply can’t be bothered to go through the extensive rituals required to avoid it, most of the time. He is capable of being polite, any idiot can do it, but he has to use his energy on  _important_  things – and not upsetting silly Mrs. Whatsit with the spots who is trying  _again_  to get him to find out where her husband has run off to – that is decidedly not important.

He is not upset that he does not have friends. He never has had them, really. Few enough as to be statistically insignificant. Those he had were short-lived. Sherlock finds nearly everyone boring, and an overwhelming percentage of the boring ones are also irritating or stupid, or irritating  _and_ stupid. 

John is something else altogether.

He is a man who ought to be dull, and isn’t. A man whose tastes in clothing and beer and women should make him predictable, and yet Sherlock is quite often surprised by him. He can be so terribly pedestrian, but in the next moment say precisely the thing Sherlock needs to set his mind on the right path. He is a man made of opposites, a man who Sherlock rarely finds boring.

Which is wonderful, truly, but is less important than the fact that John seems to actually, genuinely  _like_  Sherlock. At the beginning, Sherlock was uncertain about the longevity of their partnership – John was really unduly bothered by some of the strangest things. But John adjusted, and Sherlock willingly made a few small compromises. He would have made more, and larger, had John required them, because he finds John quite valuable.

There is a sort of companionship that John provides, which is easy – easier in fact than any social interaction Sherlock has ever known. He can simply  _be_ around John. They talk when they need to or want to, and are silent when there is nothing to say or when Sherlock needs to think. John will sit with him or walk with him when he does not want to be alone, or when he needs to stimulate his mind. When he needs to quiet the racing of his thoughts, John will lightly rub his back or press him into doing the washing up. They will stand side by side, John washing a plate and handing it over for Sherlock to dry. John will hum a tuneless song and Sherlock will feel quiet and still deep into his bones.

John had nightmares regularly, at first. They are fewer and farther between these days, but more severe than ever when they come. Sherlock will often be awake, reading or thinking or working on an experiment, and he will hear a shout, muffled by a pillow or bitten off as John awakes, or a thump as John throws out an arm and knocks a glass from his bedside table. Sherlock will wait between two and three minutes and drop a book or break a test tube, a noise ordinary enough that it will not further frighten John, but that he will want to investigate – Sherlock gives him an excuse to come downstairs, to distract himself from the fragments of the nightmare lurking in his subconscious. John will appear within one minute, two if his leg acts up, and quietly demand to know just what the  _hell_  that noise was, doesn’t Sherlock know people are trying to ruddy well sleep? Sherlock will not point out that John has had a nightmare. He is proud of himself for this, for allowing John the delusion that he has secrets. He will instead insist that John perform some inane task that is crucial to his thought process, yes, John  _really_. On very bad nights, Sherlock will ask John if he will stay nearby. Sherlock will pretend he needs John, when it is the other way around. John will make tea and toast and tut and forget his own pain for a little while.

Sherlock remembers that their first night together, John had eaten like a man who had been starving. John is thinner than he seems at first, wrapped in layers. Sherlock sees him in vest and shorts before bed and is startled at the difference. It did not take a genius to know John returned from Afghanistan with trauma issues – after all, nearly all soldiers have difficulty readjusting, particularly those who were injured – and John had been forced out by his injury. How must that affect a man like John? A man made for duty. A psychosomatic limp, a reduced appetite, absence of startle response. His only question about texting a murderer was “What good will that do?” A myriad of neuroses wrapped up in this man.

And Sherlock found, rather unexpectedly, that he wanted to help. So he made sure John was fed, though he himself would never eat while on a case. He wonders now if John ever realized just what he was saying with all those meals, the breaks for a scone and coffee at John’s favorite shop, the take-away Sherlock brought back with him when he was gone too long at Bart’s. This is for John’s benefit, but Sherlock likes to watch John tuck in to a good meal, then relax in his chair, warm and soft. Sherlock will lean over to look at John’s laptop, or his book, or just because he can. Because there is no space needed between them, because John doesn’t flinch or draw away. Because John is warm and soft and his hair smells clean and nice. Sherlock will play his violin while John listens with his eyes closed, content and safe and trusting. 

John does not fear him, or doubt him, even when everyone else does – even when he should. John will not let anyone harm Sherlock. John is the only person Sherlock would categorize as a friend, as pitiful a word as it is to encompass John. John is good. Sherlock is not, but John makes him better.

 

Sherlock stands on a ledge and listens to John’s voice. John is small and far away and Sherlock’s eyes are blurred with tears. But he can see John’s face in his mind, and he very nearly cannot do this. But if he doesn’t, John will die.

So he falls.

This is the way Sherlock loves John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this in response to the idea that John and Sherlock love each other, but it doesn't necessarily have to be romantic love, and that doesn't lessen the truth of what they have at all. 
> 
> I honestly wanted to use a Family Guy quote for the summary: "I love you. I mean, you know, not in like a, "Hey, let's, you know, let's have an underpants party," or whatever grownups do when they're in love, but I mean, I mean, I love you as one loves another person whom one simply cannot do without."


End file.
